Not that I think it was a good reason for ditching them whatsoever, but one of the main reasons given has a tiny bit of merit:
Allegedly, a lot of users often cheaped out on SD cards and then used them as adopted system storage where they moved all their apps to. This had the effect of completely tanking phone performance and then they would often get corrupted after a bit of use taking user data with them. This then generated a load of negative reputation about the devices being slow and unreliable, when the problem was the choice of SD card, and generated a load of wasted money in supporting these users when that happened (think unnecessary RMAs, etc).
Personally I think they should just have restricted it to A1+ SD cards, and sucked up the people complaining about their bargain bin Scrandrisk SD not working. But I guess they saw an opportunity to have their cake and eat it by just removing it and charging a premium for larger storage skus.
There is a UFS-II specification and even a PCIe version specifically for micro SD cards. It was all planned out, and it would have been trivial to tell consumers: “Yo need card with more contacts as shown in picture”. But no, the biggest manufacturer of flash storage is samsung, and they decided they’d rather sell higher storage capacity phones as a premium. Easy to do when you’re the second biggest manufacturer of of phones and apple already paved the way.
I literally never heard or read about a user say that when using an sd card. They just took it out to charge more for more storage.
It’s not the users saying it, it’s the OEMs. Back when this was a new discussion, I at least remember Google saying this as justification for why it stopped including them in their devices after the nexus 4
Well, that was a lie to justify screwing over their users.
I don’t think it’s a lie, it’s objectively true that shit SD cards would have that effect on performance if used as adopted storage. But I do agree with you that it was a convenient excuse, as I wrote at the end of my original comment.
Question is rather: why does Android not allow any distinction between Internal and external/removable?
My downloaded media files belong on the SD card, but APKs, sqlite DBs and temp files don’t belong there. But de facto, it’s just used as an extension for internal storage. That’s just stupid.
How did you miss the opportunity to use scamdisk instead?
That very much isn’t the case beyond like a decade+ ago. For the last decade its been not possible, or extra work to install apks on sd card. The choice is there, but it’s far from default.
it does, or at least older versions of Android did
Sometime around android 9 they removed a bunch of sd card related features to make you have to do the weird combine with internal storage thing
I recently copied all my files from my SD-Card (“formatted as Internal Storage”) to a safe location, then copied those files to the “Internal storage” part of the rom that opens up after the SD-Card was gone. It worked. on Android 10. Maybe that change was later. Android storage looks weird from the outside anyway. It was as if only the publically visible files Apps want you to see got on the SD-Card, and then each app has some hidden folder (that apps like termux or apps with custom-built file pickers sometimes kind of let you half-guess the structure of (my head: no details) and) that appeared to have been on the built-in rom all along. That copy operation now lets me remove my SD Card w/o moving all my Images and less than half of my apps files. </irrelevant-context>
In nature, sometimes the shittiest design is still successful
Motorola still has them
HTC released a phone this year that had expandable storage AND a headphone jack
AND it came with a charger in the box.
I gonna have to wait and see if they actually support this phone but if they do and continue to release phones like this (and ditch the curved glass screen) I would be totally down to switch.
What phone is this? I thought they released one but no jack. I’d be interested if it has one and an unlockable bootloader.
Nevermind. Just saw your post under.
Since the thread has grown large and I had trouble finding the comment I’ll just link it here (sorry the link is instance specific, it seems you can’t make relative ones)
Are those features that uncommon now?
Also, I thought HTC went out of business some time ago.
Yes, the joke in the meme is that Sony is the only “flagship” company that still has those features.
(Though calling them a flagship company might be a little generous)
As for HTC, it’s possible that another company bought the rights to the name, i’m not sure. They were making VR headsets for a while, so it’s possible they just backed out of the phone market and did something else.
Either way, the phone looks good, with some minor tweaks and some proper long term support it could be a serious competitor
Nice.
Haven’t noticed the features disappearing from the market. All my phones so far had them since the android rising. Guess I’ve been lucky.
they’re functionally extinct
“High End” don’t kid me on Sony.
I’ve used Xperias for years, they definitely make high end ones. Wish they would bring back flagship compacts though, the Z3c was probably my favorite.
Still rocking the XZ1C!
What’s wrong with the Xperia 1 VI ?
Ahh you meant a phone. Sorry I don’t carry a tracking device. But hey you do you.
I hope you’re writing this from 32bit pc with libreboot and lfs installed, if not, you owning tracking device too tho
Looking at the list of manufacturers, and the micro SD card in the image, what devices did you think they were referring to with this post?
skill issue, you can always make phone not track you
Don’t worry the government still know where you are by all the tracking devices they implanted /S
When SD card is the only criteria for a ‘high end’ phone
It’s not. Maybe I worded it poorly. I mean that Sony is the last smartphone manufacturer where the high end line got MicroSD slots. The others removed them. (Google doesn’t count, they never got one)
Wait did Samsung take them away again??
They did on the s21. When did they do it before?
The S5 was IP67 with a removable battery and an SD slot (so don’t listen when people say they removed batteries for the waterproofing).
The S6 had no waterproofing, no removable battery and no SD slot.
The S7 brought back the SD slot and had IP68 water resistance but they never returned the removable battery.
Yeah, shouldn’t say high end, but rather non-anti-consumer
You clearly never had a Sony smart TV or dealt with their support. They care as much about consumers as the rest.
I have a recent Xiaomi that supports 2 sim + storage and a 3.5mm jack. I’m on Redmi Note 12 (don’t recommend since memory management is atrocious)
There needs to be a law mandating expandable storage in phones.
The market will regulate itself, the consumer decides with his/her/* money, feel free to start your own company producing it (with your own money) \s
Sorry for that.
I know this is sarcasm, but I still have to also point out that companies literally conspire with each other to undermine the consumer’s ability to choose. Remember when Apple removed the headphone jack and Android vendors mocked their decision for all of one year before immediately following suit? That’s 100% intentional and planned from the start. They know we want to vote with our money, which is why they do everything they can to make sure we don’t have that choice.
I don’t really see it as a conspiracy. What seems to happen is Apple does something like remove the headphone jack. Apple users essentially have to accept it as they are locked in and don’t have any choice in the matter. Plus you have the fanboys that have an amazing ability to rationalize anything Apple does. Everyone else sees that Apple got away with something, and they follow suit.
Losing the SD slot would still be annoying but not as big of a deal with everyone wasn’t also copying Apple’s model of massively overcharging for storage upgrades.
It’s collusion not conspiracy
That has nothing to do with a conspiracy, it’s just cheaper. If they can get away with it, they’ll do it.
Reality is, most people give relatively thought to their purchases. They just buy “the new iPhone” or pick an Android that seems reasonable to them. And even those who do ostensibly care, often enough only care about specifications. More cores, more nits, more camera.
This image by itself always makes me sad for Skips…
Amazing show
Last with a headphone jack on the flagship too. This is why I picked one up lash year.
Was going to get a Sony. Then I saw their update roadmap… 2 years of major updates and another one for security patches, that was it. Noped out because of that. I’d like a headphone jack and an sd card slot, but I’d like even more to keep such an expensive device for more than three years.
Also, their phones are too big, but that’s an issue for every single manufacturer.
That is a real concern & it seems they are moving to 4 years of updates as well as not rolling out a new phone every year, but given that LineageOS supports the phones, even if I am not getting firmeware updates, I am willing to take that risk since I get more IO.
The Xperia 5 is a skinny 6.1" & many consider it to be a small phone option in 2024.
In the end, I got an S23 which receives (presumably) four years of major revision support plus another two years of security patches, which is still much more than Sony is willing to promise.
I had an Xperia Z, which I was supposed to be able to patch with custom roms. Too bad that while that generally worked, Sony locked the camera to its own software which then fell back to a much inferior mode, meaning you had to decide between updates or shitty pictures, which was a deal breaker for me and had me update to an S10e back then.
The Xperia 5 is a skinny 6.1" & many consider it to be a small phone option in 2024.
I know. It’s still too big. I was this close to switching to apple just for their iPhone mini range, but that got discontinued as well. My S23 is something like 6 or 6.1 as well. It’s only usable because Samsung has a better one handed mode than default android or Apple.
True. I also have a XA2 with SailfishOS.
I saw the SailfishOS support last month. I would have picked up a 10 instead of 5 even with the non-flapship specs to have a way ‘out’ of Android in case. It is quite a suprise Sony is their chosen brand over the more popular option (even if they have worse IO)—butt the bigger shame is not extending support to the flagship 1 & 5 😔
Been using syncthing with a script on my PC to keep copying stuff on another non synced location in the same filesystem with deduplication enabled (zfs). Technical solution, sadly, not many people are doing it… Btw i use… Xdd
another advantage of the glorious fairphone
waiting for the framework phone
The few advantages you mean, wouldn’t mind the FP if they’d use a processor that wasn’t years old and at least performed better than the Tensor G2 (A processor highly regarded as absolute crap)
The fp4 has an ok cpu with a Snapdragon 750, and fp5 is pretty good, has a QCM6490.
Not the best value for money though considering the price of similar spec phones 😅 (except that will be worth it if you end up needing to replace the screen)
My fp4 has been very disappointing so far tbh, after a year or so of using it it’s slow unresponsive and the mic doesn’t work
Seriously, I’d also recommend to unscrew the screen and screw it back together. For me it made wonders. And if this also doesn’t bring you anything, you should text support - in the end you have a warranty for a reason, right
It’s a fp4 so older and I got it second hand so unsure if the warranty still applies
Will definitely try with the screws though
It’s not supposed to do that. My FP3 got unresponsive after a while as well. The trick was to open it up and gently tighten all screws.
I’ll give it a go I can’t see how that would help but maybe it’s a loose contact to the touchscreen or something
Im curious, why would that help?
Because in IT, the fix is always to power cycle. If that doesn’t work, you take it apart and put it back together and then magic happens.
I’ve taken the battery out a number of times and it’s not changed anything, I might try a full disassembly at some point anyway just for the fun of it though
Loose cooler contact?
Isn’t the point of the FP to be able to change parts easily?
I have no issues like that. Maybe your microphone is damaged. What has been bugging me is the top speaker sounds terrible.
I have experienced that the microphone is in a weird spot on the left border of the phone, frequently where my fingers are placed when calling. So maybe check if you’re covering it too!
That may well be it actually I’ll try keep that in mind
didnt HTC latest phone got sd card and 3,5mm back?
Where?! I want to check it out
Only issue I have is the curved glass screen. My butterfingers would not get along. That and I want to see how long their software support lasts since I’ve heard it was spotty in the past.
I also wonder what the OS is like. I need things like OxygenOS from OnePlus or something close to stock android.
All the bullshit UI from Samsung or Huawei or whatever is just atrocious. Terrible UI, no longtime support. Extra account shoehorned in.
Seems like a high and phone with SD. So Bad Research from me. Sorry.
I guess you could edit it to have them crawling out of the grave? Though a bit of a stretch to call that phone high end.
I also think Mordechai and Rigby should be HTC abd Google, given they sold (most) of their phone team to Google to help with the Pixel phones (and to highlight that Google also removed SD slots… RIP Nexus)
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The point of the meme was that they all don’t have micro sd card slots in their flagshipsmartphones anymore except for Sony.
